by Tara Sue Me
“Lillian,” he whispered when at last he brought them both to release, his tone almost mournful.
All at once, she realized what he was doing.
He was saying goodbye.
Chapter 20
Ty
He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Ty believed he hated himself more for resting in Lillian’s opulent suite than he did the day of their divorce. His plan had been to come to Miami and talk with her. To put everything on the table and to be completely honest. He’d tell her about how he thought late into the night and into the early morning hours. How he’d come to understand the best things he could give her were space and freedom. It was unfair of him to hold her back from getting on with her life. She deserved to be loved by a man worthy of her. To serve a Dom worthy of her service.
That had been the plan.
But that plan had been shot straight to hell the second she stepped off the elevator. How could he let her go again? How could he turn around and leave without her beside him? He remembered all too well the depression he went through when he first moved to London. But that was a selfish reason, and he couldn’t justify denying her happiness just so he wouldn’t be depressed.
Then she tried to apologize for leaving the Restoration group. Like the entire situation was somehow her fault, even though he was the asshole who followed her to Florida in the first place. He couldn’t believe it crossed her mind to apologize. Yet, there she’d stood in the hall, the only woman he’d ever wanted. The only woman he would ever want. It wasn’t until his lips were on hers that he knew what he was doing. He wanted to love her one more time.
He thought he’d covered his emotions, buried them deep down inside himself, along with the reason for why he was doing what he was. But now he wasn’t so certain. Not with Lillian in his arms, looking at him with too many questions in her eyes.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Lillian asked.
“Not right this second.”
“But soon,” she said. “I didn’t realize until just now, but you didn’t bring a suitcase. You’re going back to Restoration.”
“I need to help them finish,” he said simply, but that wasn’t the only reason or even the main one.
“That makes me feel like I should go back.”
He shook his head. “No one expects that.”
“But — ”
He stopped her. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have followed you in the first place.” Looking back at it, that’s what he’d done. Followed her like he was a stalker or something. If some other man had followed her, that’s what Ty would have called him, a stalker. “And we both know it.”
“But you did, and that—”
“Changed nothing.”
“But it did.”
Damn, he wanted that to be the case. But it couldn’t be, no matter how badly he wanted things to have changed between them. They hadn’t, and they never would.
She pushed up on her elbows from where she’d been resting with her head on his chest and loomed over him. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. Fuck. He hated it when she cried. He hated it even more when he was the cause of her tears. He told himself this would be the last time, but it didn’t make him feel any better.
“Lillian,” he said. “You deserve more than me. You deserve a man who will give you the moon on a silver platter. One you can trust implicitly and without the drama and baggage that comes with me. And you need a Dom you know will always have your needs and best interest at heart.”
She remained silent, shaking her head as a tear ran down the slope of cheek. “No,” she finally whispered. “All I need is you.”
“You don’t need me. Hell, the last few years have proven that. I’m comfortable, is all,” Ty said. “Like an old tattered blanket. And I’m the only Dom you’ve ever served. You deserve more and you should demand it.”
He took a deep breath and made himself continue, to say the words he had to. “Eric really likes you, and you know yourself how much he wants to see you when you’re both home. And, as much as it pains me to say, he’s a really great guy, and based on the information I’ve gathered, a top notch Dominant. He can give you the things I can’t.”
“That’s why you’re leaving me today?” she asked. “Because you think once you’re gone, I’m going to fall madly in love with Eric when he flies back home?”
“No,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “I’m well aware it won’t happen instantaneously, it’ll probably take a day or two.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“I never said it was.” Because she was one hundred and ten percent right, there wasn’t anything about their current situation funny. “You need to experience more than what I can offer, and you can’t do it with me always underfoot.”
“How dare you stand there and try to tell me what I need? You don’t have a clue as to what I need. And news flash, you were across the ocean for over two years, and I still couldn’t move on with another Dom. It has nothing to do with you being underfoot.”
He sighed. This was not going well. He pulled them both up so they were sitting in bed, and she tucked the sheet around her.
“Do you remember the conversation we had the morning of our first day? When we were driving to the job site?” He waited for her nod before he continued. “You asked why we never went back to Charleston, and I said it was because we knew going back wouldn’t be the same. Don’t you see, we’re the exact same way. What we were before is like Charleston, and just like going back for a visit today wouldn’t be the same as the first time. You and I can’t go back to who we were. I told you that day, if we went back to Charleston, we’d tarnish its memory with our current reality. If we tried to go back to who we were, it would do the same. I can remember the good times we had then, Lillian, I don’t want to tarnish them.”
But if he’d thought he’d be able to talk any sense into her, the vehement way she shook her head would have clued him into her unwillingness to listen to reason.
“Why the hell would I want to go back to who we were?” she asked him. “I happen to like the person the last few years have shaped me into. Most of the time, anyway. I’m a lot more independent now. I’m more sure of my abilities and strengths. I don’t want to go back to the old me. And so what if Charleston looks different when we returned? It’s supposed to, that’s what time does, it changes things. But those changes aren’t bad, they only give us more to learn. So, of course, you and I won’t be the same way we were. t’s impossible. We’re different, and we’ll be different together, but different isn’t bad. It just means we have to relearn each other.”
She wasn’t going to change her mind, and he knew he had to get away. Knew that if he didn’t, she’d break his resolve to do the right thing. “I can’t, Lillian,” he said. “I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
Chapter 21
Lillian
Lillian didn’t tell anyone she was back in Manhattan. If she told anyone, they’d want to know why she was back early, forcing her to make something up, because she couldn’t tell them the truth. Not to mention, whenever she thought about the reasons she left, she’d tear up. And she couldn’t have that because then she’d have to make up a reason she was crying.
Bottom line? She didn’t want anyone knowing she’d all but thrown herself at her ex-husband, and he’d rejected her. There was little she could imagine that would be more humiliating. And, in case that wasn’t bad enough, after she told them everything, they’d look at her with pity. She’d gone through months of being on the receiving end of that look during and after the divorce. She had no desire to repeat the experience.
The guilty feeling she had about leaving Restoration followed her home. She’d kept in contact with Eric via text, and he told her they were fine. Of course they missed her and were sorry she had to leave, but they were on track to finish the house on time. She wondered what reason they gave to everyone about her departure and then decided it was better not to know. She never asked Er
ic about Ty, and he never brought up his name.
To keep herself busy and her mind occupied, she organized her apartment. A task she could never quite work up enough effort to tackle when she was working over sixty hours a week for Isaac.
Now, she had days of nothing planned, and she refused to waste one minute of one day thinking about Ty. It didn’t work that way, of course. It never did. So while she couldn’t banish him from her mind, at least she could keep him on the fringes.
She methodically went through her closet, sorting every piece of clothing into one of three piles, keep, give away, and for the unsalvageable items, trash. When she finished, she organized the keep items in the closet by type, and then by color. She blamed the color thing on Isaac and made a note to smack him the next time she saw him.
There was a women’s shelter not too far from the building Ty and the others worked. She’d read a newspaper article about it on the flight back from Miami. Not only did they provide a safe place for women and children, but they also worked with the women on job skills. There had been a request for gently used business attire that could be given to the women.
When she’d read the request, her mind took her back to the day she was packing for Florida. How many business suits did she have that she rarely wore? And shoes! She had no idea she was a shoe hoarder, but remembering the sight of them all on the floor of her closet made her embarrassed. Why did one person need so many shoes? Especially since she had about five favorites that she wore ninety-five percent of time.
After reading the article, she realized that was what she wanted to do with her life. Not necessarily work at a women's shelter, but to somehow make a difference in someone's life. Going through her closet would be the first step.
It was Wednesday before she finished sorting through her clothes and started on her shoes. Why had she never done this before? She found sorting and discarding things to be therapeutic. Right as she started on her sneakers, her phone buzzed.
She didn’t feel like talking with anyone, but wanted to know who it was calling. A glance at display, however, made her drop the canvas sneaker she’d been trying to decide if she should keep.
“Eric, you’re calling?” She assumed he’d hit the talk button by mistake and not the text one.
“Lillian?”
Something in his tone made her stomach twist in knots, and she sat down on the floor. Had something happened to Ty? “What’s going on?”
“Ty listed you as his emergency contact,” Eric said, and Lillian tried to make sense of his words. They were contacting her because Ty had an emergency? Eric didn’t stop, but continued, “He’s in the hospital. He had what we think was a seizure, but he was very lethargic after, and disoriented.”
Tight bands squeezed her insides together. She couldn’t breathe, and she desperately wanted to know how he was. But when she opened her mouth, nothing came out.
“I’m in the waiting room,” he said. “They just took him back. I don’t have any information or other details at the moment. But I wanted you to know. I’ll keep you updated.”
Lillian took a deep breath. “I’m coming.”
They were the only two words she could get out, but they were the only ones she needed.
* * *
Wednesday nights weren’t a popular time to fly from New York to Key West, and as a result of being Isaac’s PA, she had several contacts in the travel industry. Thanks to those two items, she was able to buy a nonstop, one-way ticket for a flight leaving later that night. Another call, and she had a car service in place to take her from the airport to the hospital. After tossing a few clothes and toiletries into the carryon bag she’d unpacked days earlier, she was ready.
The only thing she hadn’t planned for was the three hour flight. For once, however, flying didn’t bother her. Too worried to sleep and too restless to read or watch a movie, she passed almost the entire flight thinking about things she would do differently if she could go back and change them. For one, she wouldn’t allow Ty to talk her into traveling home the morning after he showed up at her hotel room. She would stay in Miami even if he left and went back to Restoration. At least that way she would have been closer when he had the seizure. She could have seen with her own eyes he was fine.
Hurry. Hurry. Hurry. She implored the plane, as if it would hear and obey.
When her silent pleas didn’t appear to help, she crossed her legs and bounced the top foot up and down. That lasted until she started bouncing it with more vigor and inadvertently kicked the man sitting beside her.
“Sorry,” she whispered, and vowed silently to spend the rest of the flight being as still as possible.
She’d give anything to have Ty beside her now, and not just to have someone to distract her. If he was beside her, she’d know how he was doing. Eric said they thought Ty had a seizure. She searched her mind, trying to find any instance of anything resembling a seizure she might have witnessed when they'd been together, but came up with nothing.
Damn it, why weren’t they there already? She bounced her foot again but stopped when the guy beside her gave her the stink eye. A glance at her watch showed there was still over an hour left until arrival. She closed her eyes and tried to settle her mind. Instead, multitude of images washed over her. Images of Ty or two of them. Their first date. Graduating from college. Getting married while he was in graduate school. The day they opened the office for business. The first apartment they bought. The trip to the Maldives he’d surprised her with.
They landed earlier than expected, and as she waited to disembark, she swore she’d walk to the hospital if the driver she’d arranged wasn’t waiting for her. Who’d ever heard of a plan arriving early?
With no checked baggage to pick up, she hurried outside, following the signs to the location the hired cars waited. Again, maybe because it was a Wednesday night, there weren’t many people around. Or maybe she was used to the crowds found at the New York area airports.
Regardless of the reason, she spotted her ride with no problem.
With a smile that actually felt real, she walked to where Eric stood outside of an SUV she recognized as being one of Tom’s. “Did you scare off the ride I hired?” She didn’t wait for him to open her door, but opened it herself, got in and threw her bag into the back seat.
“Nah,” Eric said. “But Tom owns the agency and found out you had booked them to take you to the hospital from the airport.” He shrugged. “I told him I’d make sure you got anywhere you needed.”
“I’ll be sure to thank him next time I see him. It was nice to see a familiar face when I landed.”
“And you should know he won't take your money. He said there was no charge.”
She could imagine how difficult it was to get Tom to change his mind about something once he’d made it up. “In that case,” she told Eric. “I’ll have to get creative with my thanks.”
He laughed and pulled onto a main road. Silence filled the air along with at least twenty unasked questions, but there was one she had to know the answer for. When she could no longer stand the silence, she blurted it out. “How is he?”
Eric sighed, and her chest felt tight, trying to prepare for whatever horrid thing she was getting ready to hear. “He’s better. Not disoriented anymore, but it’s odd,” he paused longer than she thought he should. “He doesn’t remember what happened.”
Chapter 22
Ty
Ty couldn’t stop thinking that walking away from Lillian had been the biggest mistake of his life. That morning in the hotel, she’d said everything he’d always wanted to hear. She’d understood what he’d been trying to tell her for months. So then why did he then turn around and tell her she was the one who had been right all along, and he was the one in the wrong?
Because he was the biggest idiot who ever lived.
Ty knew it. Tom knew it. And Eric not only knew it, but told him as much when he saw Ty arrive back at headquarters.
Actually, his exact words were, “Fuckin
g hell! What’s your problem?” But Ty translated that to mean, if you’re not the biggest idiot of all time, you’re a close second. What’s more, Ty agreed with him.
For the first few days, Ty spent his time dwelling on what he’d done wrong. It wasn’t until the early hours of Wednesday morning he realized no matter how many times he replayed the last week, he couldn’t change the past. The only thing he had control over was his present, and by changing the present, he could affect the future.
He tried to get his mind to accept the thought and put it aside to deal with later in the day. Unfortunately, his mind wouldn’t cooperate, and it was only an hour or so before his alarm when off that he drifted off to sleep.
Ty felt the lack of sleep with every step and every move he made later that morning. He drank three cups of coffee before climbing into the van Eric was driving. He’d hoped the caffeinated beverages would revive him enough so he didn’t look like yesterday’s thrown out garbage. He knew the coffee failed when Eric took one look at him and said, “Are you sure you feel up to working today? You don’t look so hot.”
“Wasn’t able to sleep much last night,” was all Ty said in response.
Eric looked over him, gave a curt nod, and said, “We’re glad to have you with us, but if you need to take a break or work slower, do it and don’t push yourself.”
Ty nodded, and said of course, but he knew hell would need a freeze warning before he admitted to needing an extra break or less work than the others.
Everything was fine for the first few hours. No one else seemed to think anything was off with him, and though Eric glanced his way a time or two, by midmorning, he’d stopped checking. With a deep breath, Ty let his mind wonder back to what he’d been thinking about in the early morning hours, and planning the best way to confess to Lillian what an ass he’d been and beg her to take him back